#hobbit analysis

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Thorin starts talking about danger and Bilbo literally just starts screaming.

[sharkangelic]

There was a lot that PJ altered in The Hobbit to fit his Action Trilogy narrative tbh, and I think a lot of it revolves around the shoehorned romance between Kili and Tauriel. After all, what’s a movie without a romantic subplot? /eyeroll. LotR was easy - it had Aragorn/Arwen built in and all he had to do was emphasize it. 

He also wanted to make Thranduil cool and give him an edgy bit of plot importance, hence his shallow personality, and he added Legolas for several reasons - not just his “It would make sense if Legolas was there(not wrong)” reason. It added to Thranduil’s edgy arc, it supported Tauriel’s “love triangle(l m a o),” and it brought Orlando Bloom back to the set - fans like Legolas and Orlando Bloom.

Thranduil’s interrogation of Thorin was different in the movie because his motives were different, and his personality was different. He was clinging to his late wife’s necklace or something, because he missed her so much he was ignoring his son(?), and he wanted the necklace back, hence his conversation with Thorin. 

Thorin said no because he hates Thranduil on a personal level, which wasn’t a thing in the book.

The Woodland Elves in general were portrayed as assholes to make their opposition of Thorin more Classic Villain, thus supporting Edgy Thranduil.

The Necklace was a very sad, clumsy way to reinforce Thranduil’s Edge - instead of being a random pearl necklace gifted to him by Bilbo at the end of the book that triggered a lighthearted moment of friendliness and mirth and expressed positive character traits on both sides, it was an item Thranduil desired specifically(oddly named The White Jewels of Lasgalen*) to support his dbag personality and add to the sad backstory of Legolas’s mom. 

As for Tauriel. 

Ha! As for Tauriel, a lot happens here to make her romantic subplot relevant. THANKFULLY, despite Thranduil’s words and the love triangle’s supposed importance**, Legolas doesn’t actually seem to have romantic feelings for Tauriel whatsoever. There is no evidence of that, and for the life of me I can’t tell if that’s intentional.

Thranduil’s Edge intersects nicely with Tauriel’s Romantic Subplot when he snarls at her because he thinks Legolas has a crush on her, and again when they disagree over helping the dwarves in the Battle of Five Armies.

There’s also Bard and Thranduil’s position as leaders in the Battle of Five Armies - their stance is completely reversed in the movies. In the book, Bard is the one who wants to fight Thorin for the treasure and Thranduil very much does not want to do that.

*Lasgalen wasn’t a Thing in the Hobbit. The forest’s name was Eryn Galen millennia ago, then recently changed to Mirkwood, and Thranduil changed it to Eryn Lasgalen 60 years later, at the end of the War of the Ring. **You cannot convince me that a love triangle actually existed. At no point did Legolas show interest in Tauriel, he actively helped her do things for the sake of her dwarf love interest, at the end of the movie he left without saying goodbye to her(seemingly over his anger with Thranduil), and she didn’t even seem worried that he might be interested in her. I genuinely can’t tell if Thranduil was supposed to come off as needlessly paranoid, or if that was accidental. It would definitely still support his edgy personality.

[thethermocline]

I think Peter Jackson was too afraid to let the elves be weird.

Because they are. So, so weird.

I don’t mean comical, I’m not looking to declaw them. But. How surreal, Elrond’s last homely house, in a valley that appears out of nowhere. You go down into it and there are elves hidden in the trees who sing extremely silly songs gently mocking you.

And the stay there was a great boon to the company, so clearly it was good - but also so, so weird.

And then there’s the wood elves. Thranduil is every inch a king. He has his people’s loyalty, he has held off the darkness for ages and ages without a ring, he has an extremely potent power which is all his own.

...he also wears twigs and berries as a crown.

I’m not saying he’s not majestic or regal I’m just saying maybe elves understand those concepts differently. It’s been a while since I saw the lotr movies but I’ve seen screenshots of Legolas at Aragorn’s coronation wearing a thin silver circlet. I think that is cowardice and unsupported by canon. Let elves be weird! Legolas is a wood elf. Maybe he just walks out into the forest before the ceremony and comes back with a ragged crown of live butterflies clinging to his hair. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but, like - elves are not people! They are elves! Let elves be weird!!!

All kinds of small magic on middle earth are interesting to me, but the wood elves...I just think there’s some potential there. I saw a clip of Orlando Bloom as Legolas understanding the trees, but he was way too regal about it, in my opinion. There’s a dignity being retained here which strikes me as out of place. This a different species! With different norms and needs and customs!!! ELVES ARE NOT JUST MEN WITH POINTY EARS

...I don’t know. I’m nearly to the Greenwood in my reading - about a chapter or so away - so I guess I’m just thinking about it a lot. And to be clear, Peter Jackson did a good job with Lord of the Rings. His movies are iconic. I just find myself eternally disappointed in his elves.

[thethermocline]

These descriptions are very interesting to me in terms of what they reveal about the woodland elves. First, like I already posted about - complete avoidance of violence! All the wood elves do is de-escalate, avoid intruders, and get their reputation smeared.

But anyway. I can’t help but notice that Thranduil is wearing leaves as a crown while his people wear jewels. I don’t think that matches with any description of him as greedy and cold. I’ll talk about that more when Thorin gets captured, there’s some interesting bits there. But I think we have an unreliable narrator.

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While Bilbo is stuck in Mirkwood, he often sees Thranduil go out to hunt with his people. It seems to me that Thranduil is not a king content to be locked away in his stronghold with his treasure (such as it may be). The Elvenking would rather wear a crown of leaves and spend his time in the sun.

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Okay why did no one tell me that Dwalin in the book has a blue beard and, better question, why wasn’t this crucial and plot-altering detail not included in the movie???

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I like the lil arrow in the corner for the Elvenking.

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I think that this passage reinforces my interpretation of Thranduil as more of a wood elf in character than the Thingol-like image the dwarves seem to have of him. His cave may be his stronghold and a refuge for his people in time of need, but Thranduil himself does not seem to have much regard for stone or for anything mined from the ground. He owns jewels but forgoes them in favor of leaves and berries. He has stone but chooses to sit on a chair - not a throne, a chair - of wood. With his crown, his staff, his chair...Thranduil seems to take a lot of influence from his wood elf subjects. Certainly he doesn’t seem like the sort of person to disparage their culture and consider them lowly Silvans...mind you, I haven’t seen the Hobbit movies, but I have heard. Some things. About their portrayal of Mirkwood’s king.

Anyway. I think we could use the lack of information about summer and winter crowns to explore Mirkwood culture a little in fandom - since we know so little about it. I figure either spring and fall are special seasons to the wood elves. Given his rather humble way of dressing, I wonder if Thranduil even wears a crown in summer or winter. Or perhaps those seasons are the significant ones, and he wears formal crowns then? But I don’t get the sense that wood elves have the same ideas of formality as the rest of middle earth. I’d love to see someone play around with some of these ideas in fanfiction. I think the Thranduil I’ve seen in fandom is nearly entirely based on the movie version. And I’m not condemning that version - clearly it was impactful for a lot of people - I’d just love to see book!Thranduil reconsidered.